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Thanks. That course was a lot tougher than I thought it looked. Definitely lots of good stuff to practice. I do feel like Prue is becoming a better partner and it’s fun. I’ve entered a trial for 1 day in a couple of weeks and will run her in standard first thing in the morning. I don’t think she’s in anything else. She doesn’t do well in the heat so I don’t want to ruin what we’ve gained. Should be exciting. I am trialing the old dogs too just for fun. Even my herding dog who loves Jumpers.
Hi Kim.
So I set up a big course Thursday night so we could all get some running practice. What a weekend. On Friday. We worked #1-12 and Saturday #12-25. This morning we put it together. It was hard for everyone. Marky was struggling with first just doing and then overthinking it after corrections. Prue has problems with verbals when I fell behind. It was a really good learning experience and I’m going to adjust how I make corrections. Anyway, I worked Marky first then took a break but apparently I was still exhausted when I ran Prue. I conked out at the DW and then forgot the course. She did good though. Just need to solidify her threadle verbal. She always has a problem with that one. My arena is 115’ long and this took up the whole arena so a lot of running.Hi Kim. I hope all is well. We haven’t practiced in a week. Not sure why just that kind of week. I wish I had video from last Saturday. We meet with a few friends In the park and did some Shape Up exercises. My friends said Prue looked great. Today we did some restraining exercises for warm up. She doesn’t like being held by the collar but we’ve been working on it and it has improved tremendously over the past year. She’s too short to comfortably hold her around the chest 😆. She can focus on her obstacles but I need to be patient and not start until she does 😬. Over all good. I think I’ll set up something for Marky that will really make a Prue and I have to run a lot from obstacle to obstacle.
Thanks Kim
I did some work on the turns out of the tunnel with a dead toy so she would shift her focus from me. I tapped some of that. This weekend we worked with friends and they thought she was doing great. No video but I did make a point to run to each obstacle.
OMG this one killed me 😆. My sand is dry and I kept getting stuck on the turn away from the first jump out of the tunnel. Anyway, Prue was giving me too much eye out of the tunnel so I changed my strategy to doing a blind cross at the tunnel to the first jump. Just a band aid to keep her moving. She had nice speed off the start line just lost it to the first jump. A nice way to end the evening though. We’re good and tired.
I went out and did the course in sequences. My goal was to do short Spurts with me running with her and reward. After the first try I decided to leave a target out on the course at the end of the sequence. She’s used to that with the weaves put clearly not sequencing. The bait bag is better but my other ones have fur on them so a disaster in the sand 😆 and I always want one on me for instant praise and tugging. I’ll buy more. Anyway, I see I can still do better running with her. And I see she is eager to please, sometimes choosing a backside when I ask for a front side. I have gotten lazy running Marky because I can do distance so I will be practicing running with him as well. That will get me in shape 😁. I need that.
Hi Kim.
Thank you for so much great information. I am going to go through your email and the video to look at everything you pointed out. I’m home today so I may get a chance to break some of it down. Thanks again. Have a great day
So today I set up something for Marky. After I worked him I took Prue around the course. I knew I would have to make a couple of adjustments and since I could get ahead of her that made sense. The blind at 3 and 16 was intentional. But when I got to the second half she was having a tough time and I finally changed my handling to stay with her. So that’s the challenge. I would like her to be more comfortable with me getting ahead and not being so Velcro. She’s not awful but she needs more commitment. It’s easy to pull her off something. I included Marky’s run as a reference. I can’t seem to attach map of the course.
Hi Kim.
Here is the second drill. I think she did good. I did not try and layer 2 and 3. I tried with Marky and really had no choice but layer or I’d fall behind but it would be a good exercise to get me to move my butt 😁. I still feel I could get a little more speed from Prue if she had more forward focus. I’ll set up a jump chute or cavaletti drill for her so she can work on that.
Hi Kim. Thanks, the arena is working out great. The added benefit is when we trial on grass it seems so much easier because we are practicing on a less solid surface. Marky has become a much better jumper. But back to Prue 😊. I’ve always run a BC and a corgi and it is hard to go back and forth but my last corgi was much faster so I was able to run the two breeds similarly. Prue will catch up I think. My cues is Up for jumps, I added the out Up because she was coming into me but I shouldn’t have to add it in straight lines. My go one is just Go but in this instance I wouldn’t typically use that either because it’s right in front of her. That’s the challenge with Prue. She is moving but not necessarily out to the next obstacle so I add more cues to keep her moving in the right direction. When we work distance exercises I will leave a toy or target at the end of the sequence to help her continue to drive forward and not turn back. That works well and I’m hoping that skill will start to take hold when we’re running together. Here’s my list of cues:
Jump-up
away from me- out
Towards me-her name
Go on-go
RX-back
Threadle-here here
Backside-push
She sort of knows right and left but I really don’t need it as much with her as I do Marky.Prue isn’t shutting down as quick as she used to so I think it’s a great idea to have her take an obstacle she runs by before we start over. It gives me another chance to reward her.
Thanks Kim
Tonight we set up the first drill. Prue is a good tugger and food motivated. Food trumps toys do I’ve worked hard to keep her motivated with the toy. The food pouch has worked out great. I’m working on not having to run along side of her. It’s exhausting to run a full course right next to her 😊. She’s good at distance but it’s not natural and she still tends to drift toward me. At trials her first run of the day is typically fast and awesome but after that she loses focus and will run around obstacles and visit the judge Or check out the perimeter of the arena. I’m working on improving her stamina but I don’t like to work her long. Considering the heat tonight and the amount of reps I thought she did awesome. I need to remember to handle and run at the same time 😁.
